


A Series Of Conversations

by Eremite



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, office relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eremite/pseuds/Eremite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That Bond has trust issues comes as no surprise to Q, but he doesn't have to like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Heads Up

Q raised a hand in greeting to Tanner, then frowned as they turned down the corridor to Mallory’s office together.

“Have I missed something? Gareth hasn’t brought our weekly forward, has he?”

“No, the weekly’s on Thursday, as usual,” Tanner replied, “but there’s something we needed to tell you about as a matter of urgency.”

“Urgent, but you couldn’t email me about it – how terribly mysterious. Should I be worried?”

“Hold your horses, Dan, you’ll know in a minute.”

Moneypenny was on the phone but she nodded them straight through to Mallory’s office, where the security glass wasn’t proof against the thunder of a spring storm.

“Come in, come in. Filthy weather, but that’s March for you.” He pushed folders aside as they settled into seats, then continued in a tone that mixed apology with irritation, “I’ll get straight to the point, Daniel: we’ve had reports that Bond has started asking about your field experience. He’s digging.”

Q felt his stomach turn over and he curled his toes inside his shoes. “Damn,” he murmured.

Tanner added, “Unfortunately, we knew that it would only be a matter of time but he’s moved faster than we anticipated and, what with everything else, we haven’t had a chance to brief you on this particular quirk of his.” 

“It’s alright – I think I already knew. He raised the subject with me himself, in a manner of speaking, when we first met.”

“So far he doesn’t seem to know anything except a vague rumour that you once left the building several years ago,” Tanner said, noting the care with which Q pushed himself to his feet to pace the width of the small room. “Everyone’s schtum and I’ve warned him off, but he’s relentless when he catches a scent.”

Mallory spoke up again. “I’m up to speed with the senior staff records, so I know about the incident in the Ukraine and about how magnificently you rallied. If Bond is going to cause you problems over it then I will personally come down on him like a ton of bricks. How do you want to play it?”

Q gripped the back of his chair. “You know him best, Bill: will he approach me directly?”

“Eventually, but he’ll have made a real pain in the backside of himself long before then. Do you want us to give him a sterner warning? He does sometimes pay attention.”

“Thank you, but no, don’t.” He took a deep breath, rocking back and forth gently on the balls of his feet, “I’m wondering if it might be be better to take the fight to him, rather than waiting for him to come sniffing or trying to contain him.”

Tanner leaned forward, his fingertips tapping on the armrest, “You’re under no obligation to share with the group, and you certainly have nothing to prove.” He shrugged and sat back again, “That said, although I don’t particularly like the idea, I can see how telling him outright might help. His veneration of stoicism and loyalty verges on the pathological.”

“Quite,” Mallory said, “And if you’re to work closely together in future then he needs to think of you as something other than–“

“A spoddy _wunderkind_?” Q broke in, laughter lifting some of the tension in his face.

“I was going to say ‘boy genius’ but, yes, if you like.”

“That’s kind of you, Gareth, but you know I’m right. Most of the field agents see me as a geek with a souped-up Spectrum in an office far from the front line. I wonder if Bond appreciates how near to home that line has come since he signed up.”

“Don’t worry, I think it’s starting to sink in – and you’re far too young to remember the Spectrum,” Tanner said.

Q smiled. “Professional historical interest. Sharing, as you put it, could stablish a deeper level of trust between us. He might respect my experience, accept that we have some common ground.”

“And I’d certainly appreciate a little less truculence from him,” added Mallory.

“Christ, bonding with James,” Tanner blew out a breath, “I don’t envy you doing that now. I got straight with him years ago, before he became quite so... granitic. And if he doesn’t respect it?”

“Then at least he’ll know not to get me secateurs for Christmas.”

“Daniel, please. Your sense of humour is appallingly bleak.”

“Working here, etcetera,” he said, wafting an all-encompassing hand. He looked from Tanner to Mallory, “Are we all agreed that I’ll call him in for a chat?”

“He’ll probably want it _mano-a-mano_ or nothing at all, so I don’t suppose that I could do it, as the one who brought you home from the mess?”

“Thanks, Bill, but I think you’re right. It has to be me.”

Mallory stood and nodded. “Alright, we appear to have a plan. I’ll leave to your discretion how much or how little to tell him, but for god’s sake don’t get drawn into a pissing match or let him needle you. Bond’s clearly not the most emotionally intelligent knife in the drawer, but he’s still bloody sharp – I know you’ll back me up on that, Bill – and while you might not manage to get him entirely on your side, you don’t want him thinking that he’s trumped you somehow.”

“Fear not, gentlemen, imperturbable will be my middle name. Time to gather my thoughts and make a call.”

Mallory waved them both off, his attention already back with reports and budgets.

As they left the outer office, Tanner laid a hand on Q’s arm, “Dan, are you sure you’re up to this? I know it’s water under the bridge, but going back to something like that is never pleasant.”

“I’ll be fine, although I might give you a ring once the dust has settled, if that’s alright?” 

“Any time, you know that. My door’s always open.“


	2. The Lowdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond learns a thing or two about his quartermaster. Q remains imperturbable, as promised.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Thank you for coming down so promptly, 007. Please, close the door and take a seat. Tea? Coffee?”

Bond sat and shook his head. He glanced around the room, noting the empty surfaces and lack of new tech for him to inspect. “You haven’t any enquipment for me, so why am I here?”

“You want to ask me a question.”

To his credit, Bond didn’t so much as blink. “Do I?” 

“Enquiries into the background of a senior colleague tend to get noticed in a place like MI-6. In the interests of enhancing the efficiency of our working relationship, I’m prepared to tell what you want to know, within reason, but only if we’re both clear about why you want to know.” Q noted a slight tightening of Bond’s jaw, “Or why you need to know. Quid pro quo.”

Letting the silence stretch out, Q remained relaxed in his chair, ignoring the twinges from his back and concentrating, instead, on the narrowing of Bond’s eyes.

“Our conversation in the National,” Bond grated out at last. “The executive staff – Tanner, Mallory, McPherson, Browne – they all know what it’s like to be in the dirt and deciding whether or not to take the shot. Shore and Boothroyd before them, and even M in her own way. What about you, though? You’re an unknown quantity, Q. When it’s your call, your hand on the tiller–”

“Of a bloody big ship, whilst holding a gun... isn’t this clichéd maneouvre becoming rather complex?”

A quick grin acknowledged the point, “It has been known. I want–“ Bond paused for a moment, “I need to know that you’ve made that decision, and not from a distance, either, but staring someone right in the face, because if you’re just a Head of Department who’s good with miniature radios and breadcrumbs then why should I trust you?”

“Perhaps because they don’t hand out Department Headships for a good degree and a competent covering letter? Or perhaps because those others – in whom you place so much trust – trust me? No? You do like to make things personal, don’t you?”

“It’s my skin. If you want professional then, indirectly, it’s the lives of the people protected by what I do.”

“Somewhere in there is your assurance that you’ll trust me if you think that we speak a common language. Very well.”

Q slid a single sheet of paper across the desk towards Bond, who scanned the few words printed on it.

_Frost, Daniel, J.  
Field status: approved 10 July 2003; honourably suspended 17 February 2004._

Bond’s head snapped up, “July to February – you only lasted seven months?”

Q nodded, his lips quirked in a small smile, “Three of them spent in hospital beds. My first-hand experience of tillers and triggers comprises a little under forty-six hours in the field. It was quite arduous and when it was all over everyone agreed that office-based espionage was more my forté.”

“Didn’t go well?”

“You could say that. In that short space of time I managed to fill my dance card: deployment, capture, violent interrogation, extraction, emergency surgery.”

This time it was Bond who waited through the silence.

“Q wanted me to see our work in the world, as he put it. After a few British installations with a nanny looking after me, I got my first real field deployment as TechOps on what should have been a quiet, two-day bash in Kharkiv: surveillance, some skulking, the possibility of an exciting punch-up or two. Six hours after we arrived on site, hostiles killed my three colleagues and bagged me. It quickly become apparent that the mission was a good, old-fashioned set-up, with me as the target.”

“Why? I mean, why you? It sounds like they went to a lot of trouble for a junior boffin.”

“They did, and with very good reason.” Q stood to refill his cup. “My star was in the ascendant: twenty-three years old and developing asymmetric façade algorithms and cryptanalysis tools that many senior staff in Q Branch at the time couldn’t even follow, let alone improve upon. I also consulted on surveillance kit, miniaturisation, firearms, various other bits and bobs... bit of an all-rounder.”

“Quite the Bright Young Thing. You said you were tortured. I assume you don’t mean that they made you use dial-up.”

“Nothing so heinous – and I didn’t say ‘tortured’. Strictly speaking, though, you’re right, as most of it wasn’t interrogation as such. They wanted a pet genius, someone tractable who would code on command, so they didn’t touch my hands or head. As luck would have it, the spleen is a highly over-rated organ and losing a few toes doesn’t affect walking as much as one might think.”

“Your spleen and a few toes?” Bond scoffed, “Could have been worse.”

Q’s voice fell to a softer tone, “They used secateurs to remove eleven phalanges, one by one. I won’t bore you with what they did with the pieces.” Bond did blink, this time, while Q continued, “Between prunings, they tied the blades to my hands and busied themselves in other ways. With a deadline approaching and no results, they became frustrated, then frightened. The extraction team interrupted a lengthy and rather ferocious beating, the results of which made movement an agony for some time.”

“I always thought that the way you sit was a hipsterish affectation.”

“What?” Q frowned at the non sequitur. 

“You sit awkwardly,” Bond twisted a little in his chair, throwing his hips off centre, “as if you have to be ready to dash off at any moment – or as if you’re never comfortable.” He straightened again, “That beating still affects you, doesn’t it?”

“Well observed. Sitting compresses several damaged nerve bundles in my lower back, so I try to keep it to a minimum.”

“And through all of that you kept your mouth shut and your hands off their keyboards.”

“You’re an intelligent man, so I’ll take that as a statement rather than as a question. I’d hardly be in my position – or in the Service at all – if I’d broken.”

“At least that record makes sense: a few months in hospital, a few more weeks of sick leave, then the decision to keep you safe at home. You must have one hell of a security detail.”

“I have. So, you see, you may be more fluent in the language, but I know enough to get the gist. I know the feel and smell of the dirt that you prize so highly, and of other things besides. Nine years ago, I looked into that man’s eyes and made my decision and, since then, I’ve made it many more times, for much higher stakes, albeit at a remove. If necessary, I will sacrifice more body parts. Do we understand each other, Commander Bond?”

“I think we do, Mister Frost.”

“Good. Now, I know that you have nothing pressing in your schedule this afternoon, and I am in need of a stroll, so I suggest that we go out for lunch and talk of less unpleasant things. I’ll let you pay: a small price for such an interesting tale. A few things need my attention before we leave – reception in twenty minutes?”


	3. The Wall

The memorial stood in a quiet corner of the foyer, both highlighted and protected by flanking kentia palms: a flat block of Portland stone set with columns of bronze stars, some with surnames and initials beside them, many with nothing.

Stopping beside Bond, Q followed his gaze to where it was fixed on the neat scar left by an excised name. “Good riddance to him,” he said.

Bond nodded.

“Shall I show you where I always look?” Q pointed to one of the earlier columns. “Euan Stebbing, and the two stars below.”

“Your colleagues, the ones who died?”

“Yes. The other two couldn’t be named.” Bond glanced round in time to see Q’s lips move in two short phrases.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have made you tell me about Kharkiv.”

Q smiled, “Don’t be ridiculous, Bond – you can’t make me do anything. I chose.” He straightened his parka, “Let’s go. I’m ravenous, so I hope your pockets are deep.”


	4. Not A Meeting, As Such, More A One-Man Invasion Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _There was cool, cool, when Bond was playing the fool_   
>  _In the stores, in the stores..._

“Sorry to wake you, Gareth, but you wanted to know when 007 resurfaced.”

“Trust him to do it at three twenty in the morning. Let’s have it.”

“Face down on my bed, fully dressed and fast asleep.”

“I wish to god I thought you were joking, Dan. Just like that? Out of the blue?”

“He turned up a few minutes ago and gave himself an unguided tour of the house, with a rendition of “The Quartermaster’s Stores” so painfully flat that I’m thinking of weaponising it. Don’t ever let him sing to you. Anyway, he passed out.”

“Drunk, I assume?”

“Of course, but there’s something else. If you’ve no objections then I’ll to try to keep an eye on him here for a day or two. There’s nothing big in the offing at Q-Branch and Bond seems rather fragile.”

“Is that a polite synonym for ‘horrifically dangerous’?”

“No more than usual, but I’ll check in with Duty Watch at every shift change.”

“I’d feel better, although – once again – you shouldn’t be doing this at all; your brief doesn’t include counselling for alienated double-ohs. We have people for that. We should collect him, dry him out and let Hall and the others poke around in his psyche for a while.”

“Because that’s worked so well in the past.”

“Stop trumping my pragmatism.”

“That he’s here at all suggests that my levelling with him was the right course of action – he’s engaging on some level, or trying to. Let’s face it, he could have washed up on doorsteps far less salubrious than mine, or drunk himself away in the dark. I’ll have a word with Hall tomorrow, and I’ll drag Bond in if things take a turn for the worse.”

“Fine, but sing out if you need back-up.”

“Thanks for not saying ‘when’. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Do that. Get some sleep, Dan - you’ll need it.”


End file.
